
Class E94 J" ___ 
' cfimreHTrepSsiT" 




BUILDING A MILITARY TELEGRAPH LINE IN THE TROPICS. 



/ 

EXPLOITS ^^^ 

OF 

THE SIGNAL CORPS 

IN THE 

War with Spain. 



BY > 

HOWARD A. GIDDINGS, 
Captain, United States Volunteer Signal Corps. 



•> > > ■) •> ■ 



1900. 

HUDSON-KIMBERIiT PUBLISHINa CO., 
KANSAS CITY, MO. 



Library of Congress 

Iwo Copies Deceived 
FEB 23 1901 

^ Copyrfght tntry 

SECOND COPY 



\ 






Copyright 1900, 

Bt Huz>son-Kimberlt Publishing Co. 

Kansas City, Mo. 



CONTENTS. 



The Demand for Instant Communication 9 

Cutting the Spanish Cables in Cuba 23 

The lyocating of Cervera's Squadron 37 

The War Balloon at San Juan Hill 47 

Connecting the American Trenches before Santiago 
with Washington 66 

The Klying Telegraph 82 

s 
The Telegraph Censor .... 113 

Appendix - • . 127 



THE DEMAND FOR INSTANT COMMUNICATION. 

Instant communication is the insistent demand of 
the closing days of the nineteenth century, in both mili- 
tary and civil life. Cities are honeycombed, as it were, 
by telephone lines, penetrating even to the very sepa- 
rate rooms and desks in our great buildings ; States and 
nations are enmeshed in intricate webs of telegraph and 
telephone lines, and the twelve parallel submarine 
cables across the Atlantic give but an indication of 
the bonding of the civilized world by that means of com- 
munication which knows neither time nor space. 

As great a change has taken place in the require- 
ment for means of military communication since our 
last great war as has taken place in commercial life 
since the introduction of the telephone, and the demand 
for instant and efficient communication is more insist- 
ent in war than in peace in the proportion that war is 
more desperate and deadly than the peaceful pursuits 
of commerce and trade. 

This is an age of specialties, and the service of mili- 
tary communication is entrusted to a special department 
of the army, called the Signal Corps. The duties of 
this corps, which originated in our army just before the 
War of the Rebellion, and which has since been copied 



10 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

by nearly all the great armies of the world, are many 
and various. Like the Corps of Engineers, its work is 
essentially scientific, including all the electrical work 
of the Army and its aeronautics. 

Briefly, the duties of the Signal Corps are to estab- 
lish and maintain intercommunication between the ter- 
ritorial components of the nation, by submarine or 
overland telegraph ; between its military posts and sub- 
divisions, and its sea coast defences and their acces- 
sories, by submarine or overland telegraph and tele- 
phone; with its armies in the field, wherever they may 
be located; between the subdivisions of its armies, in 
camp in campaign, and in battle, by visual signals and 
by flying or semi-permanent telegraph and telephone 
lines; and the gathering of such valuable military in- 
formation as its command of the channels of com- 
munication may make possible. As its duties indicate, 
its work embraces the construction and operation of 
all military telegraph and telephone lines, the manipu- 
lation of submarine cables, the operation of captive 
balloons, visual signaling, and telegraph censorship. 

Until recently, the principal duty of the Signal 
Corps, was the transmission of dispatches by visual 
signals. At the beginning of the Civil War the de- 
mand for more rapid communication in the field began 
to be felt, and a system devised by Albert J. Meyer, a 




COLONEL JAMES ALLEN. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN, 13 

surgeon in the Army, afterward brigadier general and 
chief signal officer, was adopted and extensively used 
by both the Union and Confederate forces. With this 
system, by means of signal flags waved from side to 
side, messages were spelled out according to a code 
devised by Meyer, which is the code in use by the Sig- 
nal Corps to-day, although in the interim several other 
codes have been tried and used for a time, only to be 
finally discarded. The scope of the system was lim- 
ited and the method of signaling tedious, slow, and 
subject to the caprice of the elements; yet, for want of 
a better system, it was very extensively used, espe- 
cially during campaigns and battles. The range of 
flag signals is hardly over ten miles, although some of 
the most important messages sent by signals during 
the Civil War were sent from Kenesaw Mountain to 
Allatoona, Ga., a distance of eighteen miles, and over 
the heads of the enemy. 

Flag signals with the Meyer code are still exten- 
sively used in the Navy in communication between 
ships, and between ships and shore, but they have been 
supplanted for intercommunication in the Army, except 
in special cases, by the telephone and telegraph. Occa- 
sions, however, frequently arise where visual signals 
are invaluable, as in the campaign against Geronimo, 
in Arizona in 1886, when the territory was covered 



14 EXPLOITS OF THE SWlsAL CORPS 

with a net-work of imaginary lines, over which intelli- 
gence regarding the movements of the Indians was 
flashed with the heliograph, or sun-telegraph, from 
point to point in the clear atmosphere of that cloud- 
less region; or as in the English Egyptian campaign, 
where the Imperial Army advanced on both banks of 
the Nile, with no means of speedy communication be- 
tween the forces except by signals. 

The Spanish-American War greatly broadened the 
scope and changed the method of military communi- 
cation. During the Civil War the telegraph was an 
insignificant factor in strictly military communica- 
tion, and the telephone as yet not conceived, while in 
the long interval of peace between 1865 and 1898 atten- 
tion was almost wholly directed to perfecting visual sig- 
naling. At the outbreak of the Spanish War visual 
signals, from the nature of the theater of operations, 
dropped to an insignificant place, and the Signal Corps 
was suddenly called upon to extend the elaborate and 
eflicient system of telegraphic and telephonic com- 
munication which we are accustomed to in our great 
commercial centers, through distant and tropical re- 
gions, in the enemy's country, under almost impos- 
sible conditions, to the very intrenchmennts within four 
hundred yards of the Spanish lines. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 15 

In the Spanish- American War the Army was organ- 
ized, equipped, and maneuvered by telegraph; the tele- 
graph tolls over commercial lines for the War Depart- 
ment alone being at times over three thousand dollars 
a day. 

The approach of the war found the available Sig- 
nal Corps of the Army consisting of eight officers and 
fifty men, so restricted had been the policy of the 
Government toward the regular corps. This number 
was, however, speedily increased by about one hun- 
dred and fifty men, pending the organization of a 
volunteer corps. For years the Army Eegulations 
had required that a certain proportion of officers and 
enlisted men in the Army should be proficient in sig- 
naling, and theoretically there should have been four 
hundred and fifty-four officers and one thousand eight 
hundred and sixteen soldiers expert in signaling; but 
as a matter of fact, very few were expert, and all were 
needed in the fighting strength of the Army. 

This requirement of signal practice imposed an oner- 
ous burden on the "line" or fighting troops of the 
Army, as they were obliged to give the time in addi- 
tion to their other duties, and without any incentive 
whatever, unless it be the satisfaction of knowing how 
to signal. Moreover, it was reliance placed on a broken 
reed, for the desultory practice by the line could never 



16 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

produce really expert signalmen, to say nothing of the 
skilled electricians which the present development of 
the service demands. 

Viewed in the light of the splendid achievements 
of the corps in the war with Spain, calling for the high- 
est scientific and electrical training, this economical 
scheme of raising signalists in the line of the Army 
seems very old-fashioned and almost ridiculous. 

It immediately became necessary to organize an 
absolutely efficient war Signal Corps, expanding the 
regular corps twenty-fold — from sixty men to one thou- 
sand three hundred. 

By Act of Congress, approved May 18, 1898, the 
President was authorized to organize a Volunteer Sig- 
nal Corps for service during the war, to consist of one 
colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, one major as disburs- 
ing officer, and such other officers and men as might 
be required, not exceeding one major to each army 
corps, and two captains, two first lieutenants, two sec- 
ond lieutenants, five first-class sergeants, ten sergeants, 
ten corporals and thirty privates to each organized 
division of troops; two-thirds of all officers and enlisted 
men to be skilled electricians or telegraph operators. 
This latter requirement ensured that the composition 
of the corps would be such as to enable it to successfully 
grapple with the problems which would presently con- 



IN TEE WAR WITH SPAIN. 17 

front it. In no walk of life can the amateur compete 
with the professional, and the work before it was such 
as to tax the ability and resources of the best profes- 
sional electricians and operators. The pay was the 
highest in the Army— fifty-four dollars a month for first- 
class sergeants, forty dollars and eighty cents for ser- 
geants, twenty-four dollars for corporals, and twenty 
dollars and forty cents for privates, in addition to ra- 
tions and clothing. This was ample to secure the best 
of men, the pay of a first-class sergeant, for instance, 
being equivalent to about one hundred dollars a month 
in civil life. 

In the National Guard of some of the States signal 
companies had been brought to a high state of efficiency, 
and officers and recruits from these formed the nucleus 
in the formation of the new corps. Major Dun woody, 
of the Regular Corps, was appointed colonel in the Vol- 
unteer Corps, and Captain Allen, lieutenant-colonel. All 
the other regular officers were appointed majors, and 
those on duty with army corps became lieutenant- 
colonels under subsequent legislation. 

Among the first officers appointed by the President 
were those prominent in the Signal Corps in the National 
Guard, who were ordered to commence recruiting, the 
first volunteers naturally being from among the trained 
signalists in the State Signal Corps. To these men, who 



18 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

were as experienced in soldiering as the State troops can 
be, and who almost without exception became non-com- 
missioned officers, forming the backbone of the corps, 
were added the necessary number of professional electri- 
cians and telegraph operators ; and such was the celerity 
with which the corps was organized under pressure of 
necessity, that within thirty days almost the entire corps 
had been recruited and equipped at the camp of instruc- 
tion at Washington Barracks, D. C, and two companies 
had taken the field — the Eighth at Santiago and the 
Second in Florida. 

The organization of a large signal corps for imme- 
diate service in war, under modern conditions, presented 
a new and serious problem in the matter of equipment 
With no previous similar service as a guide, and uncer- 
tainty as to the nature of the country and work, and as 
to what what would be needed and what would be use- 
less, it was a time of hard thinking; but the com- 
bined recommendations of a number of able officers 
resulted in an equipment which stood the test of service 
very well. 

My own company, the Second, was the first fully 
equipped signal company to take the field, and its out- 
fit was practically patterned after by all the others. The 
men were armed only with Colt revolvers; but in the 
light of experience it is seen that a few rifles should 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 19 

have been provided, as the Spanish sharpshooters, hid- 
den in the trees, beyond pistol-range, harassed the sig- 
nalmen, who were powerless to defend themselves 
except as they were able to obtain the rifles of dead 
soldiers. 

The companies consisted of fifty-five men, and each 
man was furnished, in addition to his field uniform, pis- 
tol, holster, and belt, with a blanket, haversack, can- 
teen, meat can (which consists of a frying-pan with fold- 
ing handle and a tin plate), knife, fork, and spoon, and a 
tin cup. The signal outfit of the company consisted of 

Fifteen red signal flags, four feet square; 

Fifteen white signal flags, four feet square; 

Ten red signal flags, two feet square; 

Ten white signal flags, two feet square; 

Fifteen three- jointed staffs for same, twelve feet 
long; 

Eight heliographs; 

Six aluminum signal lanterns; 

Ten telescopes; 

Ten field-glasses; 

Six compasses; 

Four sets telegraph instruments ; 

Ten cells dry battery. 

The telegraph instruments were intended only for 
use in tapping lines, all the regular telegraph instru- 
ments, battery, telephones, wire, etc., forming part of 



20 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

the equipment of the telegraph trains. Twenty-five 
signal manuals were furnished; also fifty field message 
books for recording and making carbon copies of mes- 
sages, and a typewriter. Fifty-five shelter-tent halves 
were taken, two wall-tents and fourteen common tents 
with poles and pins complete; also two galvanized iron 
buckets and a Buzzacott oven for cooking. 

The companies were assigned to the forces in the 
field — to Manila, Santiago, Porto Eico, and the great 
camps in this country, as circumstances required — gen- 
erally about three companies to an army corps — form- 
ing a battalion. Although the law under which the 
corps was organized provided for a certain number of 
men to each division of troops, the companies were not 
attached to divisions, unless the division be serving 
alone, but were consolidated at corps headquarters, 
under the immediate orders of the commanding general, 
whence they were temporarily distributed as the service 
required. 

As will be seen in the following chapters the work 
performed was most varied, difficult, and important, re- 
quiring at times almost superhuman exertions, and en- 
tailing the greatest danger and exposure. That at every" 
point and ; t all times it was so well done, and the ex- 
acting demands of the age were so fully satisfied that 
no word of complaint has been heard, is reward for the 
heroic efforts of the corps. 




SIGNAL UFFICEKS IN THE FIELD. 




A SHELTER TENT. 




BALLOON WAGON, SHOWING REEL AND CABLE. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN, 23 



CUTTING THE SPANISH GABLES IN GUBA. 

In the war with Spain one of the first strategical 
measures, and that of great importance, was the tele- 
graphic isolation of Cuba. Gut off from all communi- 
cation with Spain, and unable alike to make their neces- 
sities and condition known, or to furnish information 
of the movements and operations of the American Army 
and Navy, the Spanish troops in Cuba would be heav- 
ily handicapped, and a demoralizing strategical blow 
would be struck at the outset. 

The submarine cables gave Spain daily information 
of inestimable value, and, although the property of neu- 
trals, they were contraband of war in the same sense 
as are letters. In time of war no mail is permitted to 
pass to the enemy's territory, because of the secret mili- 
tary information that might be contained therein. The 
transmission of cable messages, by reason of their speed 
and secrecy, is vastly more injurious than the best 
mail facilities. As well allow the daily landing of arms, 
food, and reinforcements for the enemy as to allow him 
constant and undisturbed cable communication. 

The cables not being the property of Spain, they 
could legally be cut only within the jurisdiction of the 



24 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

nations at war — within three miles of the coast of their 
territory. 

Five submarine cables connect Cuba with the con- 
tinents. Two run from Havana to Puntarassa, Florida; 
one from Santiago to Hayti, and thence to New York, 
or to South America; and two from Santiago to Kings- 
ton, Jamaica, one running thence to the Bahamas and 
Halifax, and the other skirting the coast of South 
America to Pernambuco, thence to the Canary Islands 
and Lisbon, Portugal. The cables running to Florida 
it was of course unnecessary to cut, as we held the term- 
inals at one end, and a rigid censorship prevented the 
passage of information of advantage to Spain; but it 
w-as imperative that the other three be severed, two of 
them affording free communication with Europe, and 
the third, that to Hayti, being available for communi- 
cation with Spain, via South America. 

Cutting the cables within the three-mile limit en- 
tailed severing them at their heaviest and strongest 
point, as submarine cables vary greatly in size from 
shore to deep sea. As a cable nears shore and the water 
becomes shallow it is swayed by the action of tides and 
storms and frayed from contact with rocks and coral, 
so that the shore end of the cable is necessarily heav- 
ily "armored," weighing as much as fifteen tons per 
mile, while the smaller and lightly armored deep-sea 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 25 

cable weighs only about one and one-half tons per mile. 
The shore ends of the cables landing in Cuba consisted 
of a core of stranded copper wires surrounded by an 
insulation of gutta-percha compound, over which was 
laid a bedding of jute, surrounded by an external sheath- 
ing of heavy iron wires which were covered with layers 
of hemp and asphalt, the whole being about two inches 
in diameter. 

The ocean bed about Cuba is exceedingly difficult 
for cable work, not only on account of the jagged coral 
formations, but by reason of the sea deepening with 
extraordinary rapidity, the water off Santiago being 
seven thousand feet deep within a marine league of the 
shore. To raise a cable to the surface from such a depth 
necessitates tearing it from the bottom for many miles, 
lifting a weight of hundreds of tons. To break it is 
almost impossible, as even the comparatively slender 
deep sea-cables possess a tensile strength sufficient to 
support six miles of their own length, in order that they 
may withstand the strain of suspension across sub- 
marine chasms, which are sometimes so abrupt that a 
difference of a half-mile in depth has been noted be- 
tween the bow and stern of a ship. 

All ocean cables are duplexed (that is, messages may 
be sent in both directions at the same time), and they 
are worked by exceedingly sensitive instruments. The 



26 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

common instrument in submarine telegraphy is one 
called the mirror galvanometer, which is worked by a 
double key similar to the ordinary telegraph key. By 
depressing one key a positive current of electricity is 
sent through the cable, and by depressing the other key 
a negative current. The mirror galvanometer is a deli- 
cate receiving instrument which shows the presence of 
a feeble electric current, for while land telegraph lines 
have new battery or current introduced in the line at 
frequent intermediate oflQces, so that an even electric 
force or pressure is maintained throughout the line, no 
current can be so introduced in the long ocean cable, 
and therefore as the distance from the sending station 
becomes very great the electric current becomes feeble. 
The galvanometer contains a small permanent mag- 
net, resembling in appearance a piece of watch-spring 
about a quarter of an inch long, suspended at its cen- 
ter in a horizontal position from a vertical fiber, and 
bearing on its front surface a little mirror. The room 
being darkened, a lamp with a shade, similar to a dark 
lantern, is so arranged as to throw a fine beam of light 
on the mirror, which reflects the bright spot upon a 
screen. When no electric current is being sent through 
the cable, the bright spot remains motionless; but when 
a positive current is thrown into the cable, for exam- 
ple, the tiny magnet hanging from the fiber is deflected 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 27 

and the bright spot from the mirror jumps to the right 
(about one-seventh of a second after the key is de- 
pressed, on a trans-Atlantic cable) ; while if a negative 
current be introduced, the needle swings the opposite 
way and the spot jumps to the left. By watching the 
movements of the spot a message may be spelled out 
at the rate of twenty-five or thirty words a minute. 
On the principal commercial cables, however, an in- 
strument is now used in receiving, called a siphon re- 
corder, by means of which an irregular ink line, repre- 
senting the characters of a special code, is automat- 
ically drawn on a narrow paper tape. 

In sending telegraph messages over long land lines 
the message is automatically repeated by instruments 
at the principal intermediate oflSces, but on cable in- 
struments this is impossible, as the current is too fee- 
ble; therefore messages have to be repeated by hand. 
Although there is submarine cable enough in use to 
girdle the earth six times, we have yet no trans-Pacific 
cable, and, consequently, messages to Manila, for in- 
stance, have to be repeated fourteen times, as follows: 
Washington to a cable station in Nova Scotia; then 
from Nova Scotia to Ireland; from Ireland to London; 
London to Marseilles; Marseilles to Malta; Malta to 
Alexandria, Egypt; Alexandria to Suez; Suez to Aden; 
Aden to Bombay; Bombay to Madras; Madras to Pe- 



28 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

nang; Penang to Singapore; Singapore to Labuan, 
Borneo; Labuan to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to 
Manila, requiring a number of hours for transmission 
and affording fourteen opportunities for mistakes in 
reading and sending, the danger of which is consider- 
able when messages are in a foreign language or in 
cipher. 

The ships which lay or repair submarine cables have 
to be specially fitted for the purpose, with strong tanks 
in the hold in which the cable is coiled, and which are 
then kept full of water, and with powerful machinery 
for paying out the cable, or for hoisting it up from its 
ocean bed. At the beginning of the war there was no 
ship under the American flag for either laying, repair- 
ing, or cutting submarine cables, and efforts to secure 
a foreign ship were unavailing. There was, moreover, 
practically no cable available in the United States, as 
the entire supply on hand had been exhausted just be- 
fore the war in the laying of a cable between Key West 
and Tortugas. 

To Colonel James Allen, United States Volunteer 
Signal Corps, was entrusted the task of severing Cuba 
telegraphically from Spain, and rearranging the cables 
for American use. The ship Ad/ria was immediately 
chartered in New York, and the cable machinery of the 
Mexican Telegraph Company secured and installed in 




ON THE MARCH. 




A TELEPHONE LINE ACROSS COUNTRY. 




A SIGNAL CAMP IN FLORIDA. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 31 

the ship, which proceeded to Boston and took on twenty- 
four miles of deep-sea cable furnished by the. Western 
Union Company, and then returning to New York took 
on twenty-nine miles of intermediate type cable and 
fifty miles of insulated but unarmored wire, with instru- 
ments and supplies, and proceeded to Key West, with- 
out having attracted the attention of the press. 

On the morning of May 28, 1898, all arrangements 
were completed for sailing for Santiago at dark that 
night, with a force of sixteen cable experts who had 
been engaged by Captain Hellings, of the Signal Corps, 
himself a professional cable electrician. About noon 
the captain of the Adria went to Colonel Allen and an- 
nounced that, owing to the dangerous nature of the 
work to be undertaken, he refused to sail, but after 
Colonel Allen had engaged another captain he finally 
concluded to go, unfortunately, as it turned out, for he 
afterwards balked under fire. About five o'clock in the 
afternoon word was brought to Colonel Allen that all 
the cable experts also refused to go, and all offers of 
large salaries and other inducements proved unavail- 
ing to tempt them to engage in such hazardous work. 
The sailing of the ship that night was impossible, but 
to prevent longer delay Colonel Allen was authorized 
to take three signal sergeants, who were then at Key 
West, and at 11 o'clock p. m. an order was obtained for 



32 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

the detail of ten artillery volunteers from the garrison 
at Key West Barracks. At daylight the next morning, 
with Captain Hellings as assistant, he put to sea under 
convoy of the Dolphin, with this motley force, only one 
of whom had ever been to sea, and none of whom had 
ever seen a cable. 

The Adria arrived off Santiago de Cuba on the after- 
noon of June 1, 1898, and on the following morning 
commenced dragging for the main line cables, just in- 
side the three-mile limit, and within range of what the 
Navy called "hot batteries" on the shore. 

In dragging for cable a rope and grapnel are used, 
the latter in its simplest form being a heavy six-pronged 
iron hook, which lies on its side on the bottom, bury- 
ing two of its points in the mud. The ship drags the 
grapnel slowly across the supposed position of the ca- 
ble in longer or shorter "sweeps,'' according to the 
accuracy with which its position is known. The strain 
on the rope is carefully watched, and when a cable is 
hooped the strain rises with a steady elastic tension, 
while when the grapnel catches on rocks the strain 
rises rapidly and by jerks. When a "hook" is made the 
ship stops and commences to lift, and it is only then 
that it can be known whether the grapnel has engaged 
a cable or a rock. 



IIJ TEE WAR WITH SPAIN. 33 

The bottom off Cuba is exceedingly erratic, changing 
abruptly from six hundred feet to over a mile in depth, 
which necessitated the continual paying out and tak- 
ing in of the grapnel rope. The grapnel also constantly 
caught on coral rocks, and each time when it broke free 
the entire rope had to be taken in and coiled in the hold 
in order to discover if the grapnel was lost or broken, 
and then again paid out, a work of several hours. 

Late in the afternoon of June 2d, one of the cables 
from Santiago to Jamaica was hooked at a depth of a 
little over a mile, and the great physical difficulties of 
the work at once became apparent. The machinery of 
the Adria was designed for hoisting cables only in from 
three hundred to six hundred feet of water, and the 
work of hoisting the heavy cable from its great depth 
proceeded slowly and irregularly. Being quite near 
the shore and unable to move if attacked by torpedo 
boats, or fired upon, the signal "help wanted" was set, 
and the Texas came in and took position between the 
Adria and the batteries. The Dolphin also came in and 
lent some men to assist in getting up the cable, but, 
after raising it five thousand feet, it broke or slipped 
off the grapnel. 

The next day, as the Adria was commencing to drag, 
she was fired upon from the shore batteries. The Oregon 
SindTexas cleared for action and moved in close to sho»* 



34 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

to protect the cable ship, and the work continued, but 
without result. Work was commenced at daylight on 
the following day, but the wearisome dragging, catching 
on rocks, stopping, hauling in and paying out continued 
fruitlessly. The third day Spanish torpedo boats were 
at the entrance of the harbor all the morning, and 
shortly after noon one came out so far that the Texas 
came in and drove it back. At 6 o'clock p. m. a cable 
was caught in six thousand two hundred and sixty-four 
feet of water, and by straining the machinery to the 
utmost, and with the assistance of a detail of sailors 
from the Texas, it was raised to the surface after more 
than three hours' hoisting, and about twenty feet 
cut out. 

On June 6th the bombardment of the batteries by 
the fleet began at 7 o'clock a. m., and during the firing 
a number of shells came over the Adria and scared the 
captain and crew so much that they refused to longer 
manage the ship in that vicinity. Colonel Allen, being 
unable to navigate the ship without them, proceeded 
to Guantanamo, off which the cable from Santiago to 
Hayti had been cut by the St. Louis. The sailing of the 
Fifth Army Corps for the south coast of Cuba had now 
changed the condition of affairs, and it became desirable 
to repair the cable to Hayti in order to open telegraphic 
communication with the United States. Colonel Allen 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 35 

accordingly proceeded to Mole St. Nicholas, Hayti, and 
procured cable instruments, returning to Guantanamo, 
where the cable from Santiago to Hayti touched, and 
began the repair of the cable at that point. 

Splicing an ocean cable is a delicate and difficult 
matter, as a "joint" or connection of the cores has to be 
made, and a ''splice" or connection of the sheathings. 
The ends of the core are carefully cleaned and soldered 
together, and the gutta-percha at each side drawn down 
and heated with a spirit lamp until the two coatings 
are united, fresh layers of gutta-percha being added. 
The joint is cooled and tested for insulation and the 
splice then commenced. The jute is first connected 
around the core, after which the iron wires of the two 
ends are laid up sailor-fashion and the splice served 
down with yarn so as to make the wires thoroughly 
coherent. A well-made splice is as strong as any other 
part of the cable, but never looks as well. 

After repairing the cable Colonel Allen opened com- 
munication with Washington from shipboard on the 
night of June 20th, and reported the arrival of General 
Shafter's army. On the following day the cable was 
landed and an office opened at the marine camp at Gai- 
manera, near Guantanamo, the message that electrical 
communication was permanently restored between New 
York and the south coast of Cuba being received at the 



86 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

Executive Mansion in Washington five minutes after it 
was filed at Caimanera. 

The cable between Guantanamo and Santiago was 
yet broken, and the landing-place of the American Army 
undetermined, but when the Army began to land at Sib- 
oney the cable was spliced and again cut at sea off Sib- 
ony, spliced to cable in the ship's tanks and run ashore, 
completing direct electrical communication between the 
headquarters of the Army before Santiago and Wash- 
ington. An American cable was later laid from Guanta- 
naruo to Daiquiri, connecting with a Signal Corps over- 
land line to Siboney, affording two separate lines of 
communication. When the work was done the entire 
resources of the Adria were exhausted. Every grapnel 
was broken, the grappling rope was worn out, and every 
mile of cable expended. 

The difficulties of this work had been extraordinary. 
With inadequate machinery, an insubordinate crew, un- 
skilled assistants, and insufficient cable, American en- 
ergy, persistence, and resource made possible the splen- 
did success which destroyed Spanish communication, 
and brought the American Army within twenty min- 
utes of Washington. For his persistent efforts and 
conspicuous gallantry in destroying the enemy's cables 
within range of their batteries, in an unarmed ship, 
Colonel Allen was recommended for brevet as briga- 
dier general of volunteers. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 87 



THE LOCATING OF OERVERA^S SQUADRON. 

The reporting at Washington of the arrival of Ad- 
miral Cervera's squadron at Santiago de Cuba within 
two hours after it entered the harbor is one of the most 
conspicuous instances of the efficiency of the Signal 
Corps in the Spanish War. 

The discovery and destruction of this squadron was 
the vital point in the campaign in the Western Hemi- 
sphere, and the anxiety as to its course and destination 
after leaving the Cape Verde Islands was intense, both 
on the part of the Administration, the Navy, and the 
people, especially those whose interests would be af- 
fected by a ravaging of the coast. 

The continued lack of knowledge of the whereabouts 
of the enemy's ships kept the squadron blockading 
Cuba and the "Flying Squadron" on the qui vive day 
and night, and caused the work of preparation for de- 
fense of the coast to continue with feverish rapidity. 
Rates on marine insurance and on coast property rose 
to abnormal figures, and throughout the North Atlantic 
coast, at every available headland, emplacements for 
old smooth-bore cannon were constructed of railroad 
rails, ties, and sand, while every harbor was more or less 
thoroughly mined. 



38 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

The Army, already on board transports in Florida, 
was unable to get to sea; for as often as a start was 
made, a smoke on the horizon, or a new rumor, caused 
the recall of the transports. 

The ablest strategists of the nation were engaged 
in speculation as to whether Cervera would steer for 
Cuba or Porto Kico, for Havana or some other port, 
or would he make a dash for the coast, destroying as 
much as possible before it would be possible to stop him, 
and, if so, where would he strike? Would he fight, or 
run? Would he cross the Atlantic at all? 

During this time of trying uncertainty the chief 
signal officer was making arrangements for obtaining 
confidential information which was calculated to enable 
the Signal Corps to fulfill its important duty of gath- 
ering military intelligence. Colonel Allen was at this 
time military censor over the submarine cables at Key 
West, and Major Maxfield at New York. 

On May 19, 1898, Admiral Cervera, eluding the Navy, 
entered the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, with his squad- 
ron, unobserved, gaining a friendly port and safe har- 
bor in Cuba, and accomplishing a feat which the Ameri- 
can people believed impossible. 

At this time all Cuba was in the hands of the Span- 
iards; not an American soldier was on her soil; all com- 
munication with the United States was strictly guarded. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 39 

but such was the system of secret information through 
the Signal Corps that one hour after Cervera entered the 
harbor Colonel Allen at Key West cabled to Washing- 
ton in cipher the momentous information : ^^Five Span- 
ish vessels arrived at Santiago de Cuba. Have notified 
admiral commanding [Sampson]. The Spanish flag- 
ship arrived at Santiago de Cuba. The admiral [Cer- 
vera] hastily wired Madrid." 

This information was instantly communicated to the 
President and Secretary of the Navy, who, being im- 
pressed by the assurances of the chief signal officer that 
the information was absolutely trustworthy, at once 
issued orders for the blockade of Santiago; but Admiral 
Sampson only half believed the report, and Admiral 
Schley not at all, so that an inexcusable delay occurred 
in ''bottling up" the Spanish ships, and for ten days 
after he entered the harbor Cervera was free to sail out 
of it again undisturbed. 

On the day after the squadron arrived Colonel Allen 
again telegraphed, 'Talayo and four cruisers in Santi- 
ago"; and later, that the Spanish squadron was short 
of coal and could not obtain any in Santiago. In fact, 
daily reports of the doings of Cervera's ships were re- 
ceived at Washington, but the Navy was unable to 
verify the reports, as the entrance to the harbor is 



40 EXPLOITS OF TEE 8IGNAL CORPS 

tortuous and long, and high hills screen it from view 
from the sea. 

The whole campaign, both naval and military, de- 
pending on the accuracy of this information, and con- 
firmation being lacking, it was sharply questioned, and 
the chief signal officer was asked to verify it from 
other sources. This he was able to do within twenty- 
four hours, through Major Maxfield at New York, who 
ascertained from separate and absolutely trustworthy 
sources that Cervera was at that moment in Santiago 
harbor. 

The Navy moved hesitatingly, however. It being 
known that the Spanish squadron was off Curagoa, 
north of Venezuela, on May 14th and 15th, and the re- 
port being that its orders were to reach Havana, or 
some railway port connected therewith, the naval offi- 
cers were convinced that Cienfuegos would be its des- 
tination, and on May 19th, almost at the very hour that 
Cervera entered Santiago harbor, undiscovered and 
unhindered, Admiral Schley sailed from Key West with 
the BrooMyn, Texas, Massachusetts, and Scorpion to block- 
ade Cienfuegos. 

On the afternoon of May 19th the Navy Department 
telegraphed Admiral Sampson that the report that Cer- 
vera was at Santiago "might very well be correct," and 
strongly advised that Schley be sent immediately off 




LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOSEPH E. MAXFIELD. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 43 

Santiago with his whole command; but to this Samp- 
son replied that, after duly considering the informa- 
tion he had decided to follow the plan already adopted 
and'to hold the position at Cienfuegos, but that he had 
directed Schley to communicate with the auxiliary 
cruisers, then off Santiago, and to send one of them to 
cable the department from Hayti, and then to return 
and bring any information they might have to Cien- 
fuegos or Havana; and saying that his plans might be 
changed when it became certain that the Spanish ships 
wore at Santiago. This was in the face of Colonel 
AUeu^s direct and certain information that the squad- 
ron was at that moment at Santiago de Cuba. 

Although at this time Admiral Sampson evidently 
discredited the Signal Corps information, he apparently 
quickly began to change his mind; for at 3 o'clock on 
tlie morning of the 21st he sent the following dispatch 
post haste to Schley by the MarUeUad: 

''(No. 8.) Sir,— Spanish squadron probably at San- 
tiago de Cuba-four ships and three torpedo-destroyers. 
If you are satisfied that they are not at Cienfuegos, pro- 
ceed with all dispatch, but cautiously, to Santiago de 
Cuba, and if the enemy is there, blockade him in port. 
You will probably find it necessary to establish com- 
munication with some of the inhabitants-fishermen or 



44 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

others — to learn definitely that the ships are in port, 
it being impossible to see into it from the outside." 

Immediately after sending this, Admiral Sampson 
left Key West and arrived off Havana at 11 o'clock a.m. 
He seems to have become convinced of the accuracy of 
the reports at this time, for he immediately took the 
Hawh off the blockade and sent her full speed to Cien- 
fuegos with a duplicate of dispatch No. 8, and an addi- 
tional note, in which he said : 

^'It is thought that the Spanish squadron would 
probably be still at Santiago, as they must have some 
repairs to make and coal to take;" and, "The Yale has 
been ordered to cruise in the Bahama Channel till May 
24th. It is thought that the Spanish, hearing of your 
departure from Cienfuegos, may attempt to go there" 
(Bahama Channel). 

Admiral Schley, however, took no stock in the in- 
formation as to the whereabouts of the Spanish fieet, 
as shown by his answer : 

"Off Cienfuegos, May 23, 1898. 
"To Sampson: 

"Sir, — In reply to your letter No. 8, I would state 
that I am by no means satisfied that the Spanish squad- 
ron is not at Cienfuegos. The large amount of smoke 
seen in the harbor would indicate the presence of a num- 
ber of vessels, and under such circumstances it would 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 45 

seem to be extremely unwise to chase up a probability 
at Santiago de Cuba, reported via Havana, no doubt 
as a ruse. 

"I shall, therefore, remain off this port with the 

squadron I am further satisfied that the 

destination of the Spanish squadron is either Cien- 

fuegos or Havana, and I think we ought 

to be very careful how we receive information from 
Havana, which is no doubt sent out for the purpose of 
misleading us." 

Admiral Sampson seemed now to have absolute con- 
fidence in the reports regarding the Spanish ships, for 
he immediately sent the Wasp to Schley with the fol- 
lowing order: 

"St. Nicholas Channel, May 27, 1898. 

"Sir, — Every report, and particularly confidential re- 
ports, . . . state Spanish squadron has heen in San- 
tiago de Cuba from the lOtJi to the 25th inst., inclusive, the 
25th being the date of the last report received. You 
will please proceed with all possible dispatch to San- 
tiago to blockade that port." 

Upon receipt of this Schley raised the blockade of 
the empty port of Cienfuegos and proceeded off San- 
tiago, where, on May 29th, he received the following 
cablegram from Secretary Long: 



46 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

"It is your duty to ascertain immediately the Span- 
ish fleet, if they be at Santiago de Cuba, and report. 
Would be discreditable to the Navy if that fact was not 
ascertained immediately. All naval and military move- 
ments depend on that point." 

At 7 o'clock p. m. on this day, Schley was able to 

reply : 

"Enemy in port. Recognized Ohristobal Colon and 
Infanta Maria Teresa. Doubtless the others are here." 

Thus, on the tenth day after Oervera's ships arrived, 
the Navy was able to confirm the information which, 
within two hours of the squadron's arrival, was fur- 
nished to the President by the Signal Corps, and of the 
doings of which daily reports had been constantly fur- 
nished, even to such details as "the Admiral hastily 
wired Madrid." 

No confidence is violated in now telling that 
the information regarding Cervera's squadron came to 
Colonel Allen through an employee of the cable com- 
pany at Havana, who was in the pay of the Signal Corps. 
All the information about Cervera came from Santiago, 
over the Cuba submarine cable on the south coast, to the 
Captain-General at Havana, and Colonel Allen's agent 
obtained it from "a Spanish government official hold- 
ing a high position." 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 47 



THE WAR BALLOON AT SAN JUAN HILL. 

Never before, perhaps, lias an army operated in a 
country where the advantages of a balloon for recon- 
noitering the enemy's position were greater than before 
Santiago. The luxuriant tropical vegetation, which 
made movements outside the narrow and crooked trails 
almost impossible, shielded from view both friend and 
enemy, and made the ordinary methods of reconnais- 
sance almost futile. The operations, too, were over 
unknown ground, and the strength and character of 
the Spanish force a matter of speculation. A similar 
necessity for a balloon existed almost at the same time 
at Manila, where the country was flat, even less known 
than Cuba, and covered with a dense growth of East 
Indian vegetation. 

The use of a balloon by the Signal Corps was no nov- 
elty, its advantages for reconnoitering purposes in a 
flat or wooded country being universally recognized by 
military experts, and particular attention being given to 
the service in all the great continental armies. Neither 
is it to be supposed that a balloon applied to military 
purposes is a modern device, like magazine arms, smoke- 
less powder, or the telephone; for in 1794 there was used 



48 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

in war, by France, a captive balloon whicli was filled 
with hydrogen and towed by men with ropes, in a very 
similar manner to that at Santiago. Napoleon also 
recognized their value, and took two with him to 
Egypt, but they were lost in shipwreck before reaching 
there. 

Balloons were considerably used by the Union Arm.y 
in the Civil War, General It'itz-John Porter making an 
ascension at the battle of Fair Oaks, and General But- 
terfield at Fredericksburg; but their general and per- 
fectly successful use was restricted by the lack of 
means for electric communication with the ground. The 
advent of the telephone has given a new impetus to mili- 
tary ballooning, as the occupants of the car can now 
talk directly with the commanding general, miles dis- 
tant, while making the observation. 

Aside from the direct value of balloons in making 
observations and gaining information, they have an in- 
direct value in interfering with the work of the enemy. 
Whoever can see a balloon imgaines that the occupants 
of the balloon can see him, and thus intrenchments, 
earthworks, and movements intended to be secret must 
be avoided while a balloon is up. This effect is illus- 
trated by Lieutenant Hobson's report that on July 1, 
1898, General Toral and twenty or thirty other officers 
were having a conference under his prison window in 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 49 

Santiago, when the balloon rose above our lines. The 
officers appeared to have misgivings about it and has- 
tily drew over to some buildings about one hundred 
yards away, where they were screened from its view. 
At the beginning of the war the American Army pos- 
sessed only one balloon, and that a home-made silk affair 
of fifteen thousand feet capacity, which had been made 
by the members of the Signal Corps and considerably 
used in drills and experiments at Fort Logan, Colorado. 
It was similar to the balloons used in the British Army, 
being inflated when in the field from portable steel tubes 
containing hydrogen gas compressed under one hundred 
and twenty atmospheres. Forty-five of these tubes may 
be carried on a wagon, so arranged that the gas may 
be let into the balloon through a flexible pipe from 
the several tubes in succession. One hundred and 
eight tubes were required to inflate the balloon, which 
would then carry two men in the car. The cap- 
tive cable, by which its elevation and movements 
were regulated, contained two separate, insulated wires 
which formed a metallic telephone circuit between 
the car and the ground. This cable was wound on a 
drum attached to a heavy wagon, and so arranged 
mechanically as to produce the necessary power to haul 
down the balloon at will. The one hundred and eight 
tubes furnished gas for only one inflation, and for the 



50 EXPLOITS OF THE 8IGNAL CORPS 

continued use of a balloon, a gas-generating plant at 
some available point is necessary for filling the balloon 
or recharging the tubes. 

Early in April, 1898, the balloon was shipped from 
Denver to New York with the intention of using it at 
Sandy Hook for discovering the approach of the en- 
emy's fleet, in which work it would doubtless have been 
of great value, had the Spanish squadron made a descent 
on the coast. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph E. Maxfield, Volunteer 
Signal Corps, a captain in the Signal Corps of the Reg- 
ular Army, was assigned to balloon service, and arrived 
at New York from Chicago, where he was serving as 
chief signal officer, Department of the Lakes, on April 
13th. Colonel Maxfield was ordered, as appropriations 
became available, to equip first one, and then two, bal- 
loon trains; but as everything connected with a balloon 
has to be made to order, and time was wanting, it was 
impossible to prepare the trains for the field in time to 
accompany the army to Cuba, thus affording another 
instance of the necessity of preparing for war in time 
of peace. 

Lack of time restricting balloon operations to the 
material on hand, and it being deemed more necessary 
to have a balloon with the army in the field than at 
Sandy Hook, the balloon outfit was shipped to Tampa, 




'CENTRAL" IN THE FIELD. 




TELEPHONE STATION AT SAN JUAN HILL, 




TAPPING A SPANISH LINE. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 53 

Florida. The apparatus consisted of one silk balloon, 
one small generator, one small gas-compressor, one hun- 
dred and eighty steel tubes for holding the compressed 
gas, one balloon wagon, five tube wagons and one tool 
wagon. It may be here remarked that both the com- 
pressor and generator were made for purposes of experi- 
ment and instruction, and were inadequate for actual 
operations in war, in the enemy's country. Much delay 
occurred in shipping the outfit from Fort Wadsworth, 
N. Y., as it was very heavy and there were but few men 
to handle it. After being shipped, over a month was 
occupied in its journey to Tampa, where it became lost 
in the famous freight-car blockade. 

Meantime Colonel Maxfield had purchased three bal- 
loons in Paris, a portable gas-generator, a large semi- 
portable generator, a compressor, a large sheet-iron 
gasometer, a stationary boiler for operating the com- 
pressor, five thousand feet of balloon cable, and an addi- 
tional cable reel; also great quantities of iron turnings 
and sulphuric acid for the generation of hydrogen, and 
a variety of tools for working in both wood and metal. 
All the apparatus was shipped to Tampa as fast as 
ready, it being intended to establish a permanent bal- 
loon plant at that point. First Lieutenant L. B. Wild- 
man, Volunteer Signal Corps, an aeronautical engineer, 
being assigned as assistant to Colonel Maxfield, super- 



54 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

intended the latter part of the work, which was not 
completed until the middle of July, by reason of maijy 
delays, one of which was the wrecking of the gaso- 
meter one hundred and fifty feet from its point of erec- 
tion. The gasometer was a cylinder twelve feet in diam- 
eter, and the railroad company pulled it through a ten- 
foot trestle, the resulting distortion being all that could 
be expected. 

It was proposed to organize two balloon companies, 
each equipped with two balloons, a generator and one 
hundred and sixty tubes, with the necessary wagons 
and accessories; but Colonel Maxfield, being at that 
time telegraph censor over the submarine cables land- 
ing at New York, was delayed until May 31st, when 
upon repoi-ting at Tampa, he was ordered to prepare a 
balloon train to accompany the expedition of the Fifth 
Army Corps to Santiago de Cuba, and informed that he 
had but two or three days in which to do it. 

At this time Colonel Maxfield had under his com- 
mand not a single officer or man, and the articles of 
balloon equipment which had been shipped from time 
to time were not only not unloaded, but were lost among 
the thousands of cars in the railroad yards of Tampa 
and vicinity, the numbers of many of the cars being 
unknown. It was here that Colonel Maxfield displayed 
that energy and dogged persistency which are as char- 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 55 

acteristic of him as are his splendid courage and quiet 
modesty. By personally going through all the bills of 
lading in the office of the depot quartermaster, and by 
the greatest exertion in hunting and examining cars 
without rest, day and night, most of the equipment was 
at last located. A detail of three wagons and about 
forty men was secured, and the five tube wagons were 
unloaded, giving eight wagons, upon which, by the 
night preceding the departure of the troops from Tampa 
to Port Tampa, all of the necessary balloon material 
had been loaded, excepting the gas tubes, which, in two 
cars, were sent by rail to Port Tampa. Ten men of the 
Signal Corps now reported to Colonel Maxfleld from 
Chickamagua, four from Atlanta, and ten from Major 
Greene's command at Tampa; also Second Lieutenants 
Walter S. Volkmar and George C. Burnell. Second 
Lieutenant James R. Steele, one of the most able ser- 
geants in the Regular Corps, and who died of yellow 
fever before returning, also reported before the expe- 
dition sailed. 

Although Port Tampa is but nine miles from Tampa, 
the greatest difficulty was experienced in reaching the 
port, owing to the congestion of traffic, which was such 
at this time that five hours were consumed in covering 
the distance. Arrangements were made for two cars for 
transporting the equipment, which were to be ready at 



56 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

ten o'clock in the evening, but when the loaded wagons 
arrived at the designated place the cars could not be 
found. It was only after the urgency of the case had 
been most forcibly presented to the much-harassed 
yardmaster that two other cars were obtained. The 
night was spent in loading the cars, the next day being 
the one designated for loading the transports. To. avoid 
any further delay the tents, rations, and men were sent 
to Port Tampa by road. As might be expected, no 
assignment of the balloon detachment to any transport 
had been made, and it was only after much delay, and 
an order from the commanding general himself, that one 
was obtained. When at last the balloon cars were 
brought alongside the designated transport, the Rio 
Grande, the work of loading was rushed, but owing to 
the fact that the carboys of sulphuric acid could not be 
placed in the hold, but had to be hoisted up over the 
ship's side, all of another night was spent in loading. 

The hurry and confusion at this time were indescrib- 
able, and although tents were obtained (which were 
afterward not allowed to be landed), only part of the 
men had mess outfits, and none had arms. 

Twice during the voyage Colonel Maxfield had the 
balloon spread on the deck, as he was fearful that its 
long stay in the freight-cars and hold were injuring 
it. It was found, as suspected, that the heat was soften. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 57 

ing the varnish, and the greatest care was taken to pre- 
vent the sides from sticking together. 

On the morning of June 20th, the great fleet of trans- 
ports and their convoys — thirty-five ships — were sighted 
by the fleet blockading Santiago, and on June 22d the 
landing began at Daiquiri. The order for landing pro- 
hibited all persons not serving with the designated or- 
ganizations from leaving the transports, and, as the bal- 
loon detachment was not included, it was compelled 
to remain on board for six days longer. 

On June 27th orders were brought to Colonel Max- 
field from the commanding general that the balloon be 
landed and taken to the front for the purpose of mak- 
ing a reconnaissance. Permission was at once requested 
to land the generator and necessary acid and iron turn- 
ings to inflate the balloon at the landing-place and tow 
it to the front after inflation, saving the tubes of gas 
for an emergency, or to refill the balloon at a distance 
from the landing. Owing probably to a lack of under- 
standing of the matter, or to a resolve to allow nothing 
but the merest necessities to come ashore, this was re- 
fused. The balloon and cylinders were therefore landed, 
and as the Rio Grande sailed away with the generator, 
the detachment was left in the uncomfortable position 
of being in the enemy's country, with great things ex- 
pected of them, but with an old and leaky balloon, and 
only gas enough to fill it once. 



58 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

The landing was not without incident, as the swell 
was very heavy, and after losing one man overboard 
it was found necessary to delay until the next morn- 
ing, when the landing was completed, the outfit loaded 
on seven army wagons, and the march to the front be- 
gun. The road was found to be very bad, and the wag- 
ons had to be frequently partially unloaded at boggy 
places, so that it was night before Siboney was reached. 
Keporting to the commanding general. Colonel Maxfield 
was directed to proceed the following morning to what- 
ever point should be selected as headquarters. 

Reaching headquarters, a heavy rainstorm, which in 
Cuba means a drenching torrent, prevented work that 
day; but the next day the balloon was spread. It was 
found that, despite all the care, the two sides of the 
envelope were stuck together, and that portions of it 
were badly rotted besides. Many small holes were 
found and some rents of considerable size. The holes 
were carefully sewed and covered with adhesive plaster, 
and the balloon inflated, but its condition was so bad 
that in time of peace it would have been considered very 
unsafe. 

Three ascents were made from headquarters on the 
Santiago Road that afternoon: the first by Colonel Max- 
field and Sergeant Baldwin, of the Signal Corps, a pro- 
fessional aeronaut; the second by Lieutenant Volkmar, 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 59 

of the Signal Corps, and General Castillo, of the Cuban 
Army; and the third by Colonel Maxfield and Colonel 
Derby, chief engineer of the Fifth Army Corps. The 
ascents resulted in the gaining of knowledge of the 
direction and course of the roads and streams in front 
of the American Army, and a very enthusiastic report 
of the value of the balloon was made by Colonel Derby 
to the commanding general, who ordered that it be used 
in the battle the next day. 

Incidentally the occupants of the car, from their 
elevated position, observed the Spanish fleet riding at 
anchor in Santiago harbor, and further out our own 
fleet in a great curve, like the floats of a net, about the 
entrance. 

The balloon was secured in the most sheltered place 
possible for the night, but the wind caused new rents, 
which had to be repaired at daylight. The gas lost was 
replaced, and the detachment commenced to tow the 
balloon to El Poso, which was to be General Shafter's 
headquarters, and where Colonel Derby was to join the 
balloon detachment. 

Colonel Maxfield rode up the hill at El Poso to find 
Colonel Derby and select a suitable place for an ascen- 
sion, and found instead a very accurate shrapnel fire 
from the enemy, which killed his horse. Returning to 
the bottom of the hill, he met Colonel Derby, and the 



60 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

balloon was taken to a place in the river bottom and an 
ascent made, both officers occupying the car. From this 
elevation a view was obtained of the field of action, 
which was densely covered with trees and undergrowth, 
and a message was sent to the adjutant-general of the 
corps, stating the position and movements of the troops, 
both to the front toward San Juan Hill and on the right 
at El Caney. 

The intrenchments on San Juan Hill could, from that 
position, be but partially made out, and under orders 
of Colonel Derby the balloon was hauled down to within 
a few hundred feet of the grond, and, with the occu- 
pants still in the car, towed toward the front, until a 
more suitable position for viewing the intrenchments 
should be found. Colonel Maxfield desired to stop and 
make an ascent from the hill at El Poso, which he had 
originally selected as the proper point; but Colonel 
Derby, with more courage than discretion, insisted on 
going farther to the front. Maxfield, feeling that he 
was responsible for the balloon and its preservation 
until its work was done, protested, arguing that experi- 
ments abroad had demonstrated that while a balloon 
in the air is extremely deceptive as to distance and 
elevation, yet it is a most tempting target, invariably 
attracting a heavy fire, and is extremely liable to be 
lost, if nearer the enemy than long artillery range. 



7^ TEE WAR WITH SPAIN, 61 

Colonel Derby, however, persisted, and Maxfield, 
fearing that further protests would be misconstrued and 
feeling that the engineer officer represented the com- 
manding general, desisted, and the balloon was rap- 
idly towed to the front until the troops deploying for 
an attack on the San Juan blockhouse and trenches 
were reached, it being the first time that a balloon was 
ever on the firing-line, and probably the last. As no 
further progress to the front could be made, the balloon 
was towed across the San Juan River and into a large 
meadow. From this point it was seen that the trenches 
on San Juan Hill were very strongly held, and a mes- 
sage was sent to the commanding general suggesting 
that the artillery on the hill at El Poso reopen on them, 
as it is not recognized as possible, in the art of war, for 
infantry to successfully storm an intrenched position 
like that before the American troops, unless the enemy 
be first badly demoralized by artillery fire. 

As soon as the balloon ascended it drew a heavy mus- 
ketry fire, with probably some shrapnel, and for des- 
perate peril the position of the occupants of the basket 
rivalled anything in the war. Not only was the motion- 
less -wicker basket a target for innumerable Spanish 
rifles at easy range, but the balloon was old and rotten 
and threatened at every gust of wind to split in two- 
from top to bottom. 



62 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

No men ever risked their lives more completely in 
the line of duty than did Joseph E. Maxfield and George 
McO. Derby on this occasion, and that they could un- 
der such circumstances calmly and intelligently exam- 
ine and report on the enemy's position is to the glory 
of the American Army. Both were afterward recom- 
mended for brevet for extraordinary heroism. 

In a very few minutes it was evident that the bal- 
loon had been severely struck, as there was a decided 
loss of gas, and an inclination to settle. Hoping to be 
able to repair the damage before losing enough gas to 
cripple the balloon. Colonel Maxfield ordered it hauled 
down. Upon examination, eighteen holes were found in 
it, and the loss of gas quickly became so great as to 
render its further use impossible. After half an hour's 
work, under a heavy musketry fire, although in the shel- 
ter of the bank of the river, the balloon was secured and 
the cable untangled, when the detachment retreated 
along the river bottom. 

During the work the leaves cut by the enemy's bul- 
lets fell in showers from the bushes and trees on the 
banks of the river, but, owing to the shelter of the bank, 
only one man was struck. Later in the day Lieutenant 
Volkmar examined the balloon and found that the gas 
had entirely escaped, and that it was so badly injured 
as to be unserviceable for future use, unless facilities 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 87 

by dynamo-electric machines — is what is known as a 
"gravity" battery, a cell of which consists of a glass 
jar containing a copper plate at the bottom and a zinc 
plate near the top. The copper plate is surrounded by 
a copper sulphate solution and the zinc plate by a zinc 
sulphate solution, which, being lighter, floats on the 
denser copper solution; hence the name "gravity" bat- 
tery. Ths is the best battery known, but it is not 
adapted to use in the field, as the glass jars are liable 
to fracture, and the liquids to become mixed and cause 
wasteful chemical action. For this reason "dry" bat- 
teries were adopted for use in the field, being compact, 
sealed, non-breakable jars. But dry batteries are not 
adapted to closed circuit work, as a continuous cur- 
rent, upon which gravity cells thrive, quickly wears 
them out and they become useless. Therefore the open- 
circuit system of telegraphy, in which the current 
passes through the line only while the key is in con- 
tact in making signals, was adopted. 

The difference in the operation of the closed-circuit 
system, universally used in America, and the open- 
circuit system, which, while much used abroad, is prac- 
tically unknown in this country, is interesting. In our 
commercial telegraph lines the electric current is nor- 
mally in the line all the time when not in use, the 
electric circuit being kept closed at each instrument 



88 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

by a little switch. It is only when messages are to be 
sent that the circuit is broken by opening a switch in 
order that the manipulation of the key may send sig- 
nals by "making and breaking" the electric curcuit. 
On commercial lines the current is supplied at both 
ends of a line, if not also at intermediate points, in 
order that a steady electric pressure may be main- 
tained; for if the current be all supplied at one end of 
the line, the electric force near that end will be strong, 
while as the distance increases it becomes weaker and 
weaker, owing to the leakage and the "resistance" of 
the line and instruments. 

The open-circuit system, which was used on flying 
telegraph lines in the war, is exactly the opposite of 
the above. Although the circuit remains closed, no 
current is normally in the line when not in use. Each 
station is provided with enough battery to work the 
whole line, and when an operator in sending a message 
makes contacts with his key he throws the current 
from his own battery into the line. While this system 
may possess advantages for special work, it is more 
complex than the common system, and more difficult to 
install and operate. 

So little can those who have never had the expe- 
rience know what soldiering in time of war is really 
like, that it may reasonably be imagined that building 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 89 

flying lines is merely a healthy and interesting exer- 
cise, like a field-day maneuver of the National Guard, 
or a military exhibition on the tan-bark in Madison 
Square Garden. The following account of the actual 
building of a line twenty-five miles and two thousand 
feet long between Jacksonville, Florida, and the Re- 
cuperative Camp on the east coast may be taken as a 
fair example of the labor, diflBlculties, vexations, and 
hardships of this work. Some lines may have been 
more easily built. It is certain that many were vastly 
more difficult. 

On the morning of September 9, 1898, while acting 
as chief signal officer of the Seventh Army Corps, then 
encamped in the vicinity of Jacksonville, Florida, the 
writer was summoned to headquarters by Major-Gen- 
eral Fitzhugh Lee, commanding the corps, which then 
numbered about twenty-seven thousand men, and was 
directed to build a flying telegraph line from head- 
quarters to Pablo Beach, on the Atlantic coast, where 
the Convalescent Hospital was located, and a brigade 
or more of troops suffering from the debilitating influ- 
ences of a tropical summer were encamped. 

The building of this line was a considerable matter, 
as the distance by road was some thirty miles, and the 
St. John's River here over half a mile wide. 



90 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

The Signal Corps was supplied with a quantity of 
submarine cable for crossing rivers, and the river was 
immediately reconnoitered with a view to selecting a 
point at which to lay the cable. It was found that at 
the most favorable point for crossing — where the cable 
might be landed in a boathouse — the bottom was fre- 
quently dragged by ship's anchors, in which way a com- 
mercial cable had previously been broken. The water 
hyacinth, too, which infests the river to such an extent 
as to impede navigation, would give trouble in laying 
the cable at this point, and it was finally decided to 
cross on the railroad bridge farther up stream, where 
the cable would need to be submerged only in the clear 
channel under the draw. 

During the preparation of the cable, however, the 
Western Union Telegraph Company made a proposi- 
tion that we use a spare strand in their cable and 
electric current from their office, as on our other lines 
about the city, in return for which we were to handle 
any commercial business which might come over the 
line. Their offer w^as at once accepted, as it not only 
relieved us of the labor of laying a cable across the 
river, but would be a convenience to the soldiers at 
the Recuperative Camp, enabling them to send and re- 
ceive messages direct with any point in the country at 
ordinary commercial rates. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN, 91 

The first thing to be done in building a flying line 
is always to reconnoiter the proposed route, learning 
the obstacles to be encountered, the kind and amount 
of material necessary, and the approximate length of 
line. Never but once did I attempt to build a line on 
a route not previously reconnoitered, and that was by 
accident, the line coming to grief and having to be 
recovered. 

Being informed that there was a more or less trav- 
eled road to Pablo Beach, the following day I recon- 
noitered the route in an empty wire wagon drawn by 
four young mules. The country between Jacksonville 
and the Atlantic coast is almost perfectly flat, like all 
of Florida, and is mostly covered with heavy pine 
timber to within a few miles of the sea, where broad 
savannahs, covered with rank grass, scrub palmetto 
and other tropical undergrowth, interspersed with slug- 
gish or stagnant inlets, stretch away to the sand- 
dunes on the coast. 

The roads, which are mere trails through the sand, 
and are often almost imperceptible on the pine needles 
in the woods, are very crooked, probably from natural 
causes — avoiding the innumerable swamps and seek- 
ing the most open places — and being near the St 
John's Kiver, and but a few inches about the sea-level, 
are corduroyed in places for considerable distances. 



92 EXPLOITS OF THE 8IQNAL CORPS 

Numerous streams, some of considerable size, are 
crossed, and the savannah is traversed by a long, 
straight dike from which the road reaches the beach 
through a cleft in the sand-hills, which the sand ever 
seeks to fill. The bridges were nearly all rotten and 
in poor repair, and in crossing one with the wire 
wagon, part of it collapsed, the wagon being jerked out 
only by violent effort. Returning to Jacksonville the 
next day, an ofiScial request was at once made that the 
Engineer Corps repair this bridge, but the Engineer 
Corps was not prepared to do such work, and in the 
end the Signal Corps had to do it, as will be seen. 

At 7 o'clock on the morning of September 12th, a 
section of telegraph train crossed the St. John's River, 
and work was commenced. The train consisted of a 
wire wagon, a lance truck, two army wagons, carry- 
ing rations, tentage, and forage, one officer and thirty- 
three men, three of whom were mounted. 

The Western Union Telegraph Company had a 
^^dead" or unused wire running from their cable on the 
south side of the river to St. Augustine, and as this 
paralleled the route of the flying line for a mile or more 
it was intended to cut it where the routes branched, 
and start from there. A negro with a railway bicycle 
was sent from the Western Union office across the 
railroad bridge to "trace" the wire from the cable 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 93 

down the track to the point where we were to cut it, 
but, as might be expected, we never saw him again, and 
were obliged to cut and splice one wire after another 
until the right one was found. Anchoring the line to 
a telegraph pole, it was then run across some culti- 
vated fields, and carried over the highway by lashing 
two sixteen-foot lances together, from which point it 
commenced to approximately follow the road toward 
the coast. 

In building almost every such line, modifications of 
one kind or another have to be made in the organiza- 
tion of the train. Under some conditions many axemen 
are required, and under others none at all, and changes 
in the number, arrangement, and duties of the differ- 
ent squads are frequently necessary, although the gen- 
eral principle remains the same. Every detachment is 
BO divided as to do the work most easily, rapidly, and 
effectively, and in building this line through pine tim- 
ber and tropical vegetation a director and two mark- 
ers, all mounted, came first, as usual; next a surveyor, 
the pinmen being dispensed with, as the pins could 
not be located in the undergrowth, then three axemen 
and one with a bush-hook, then three barmen, followed 
by the lance truck, after which came the wire wagon, 
with the operator, wiremen, and another axeman, fol- 



94 EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

lowed by the lancemen, and, finally, an inspector and 
two assistants brought up the rear. 

The manner of constructing the line was as follows: 
the director, who was a trusty sergeant, rode ahead 
and examined the road, deciding how the line should 
best run to avoid angles, following the general direc- 
tion, but disregarding the deviations of the roadway. 
A marker with a white flag was posted as far in ad- 
vance as vision allowed, and the second marker ^^lined 
in" with the line already built. The surveyor paced 
the route established by the markers, and indicated 
the exact position of the lance poles, fifty-five paces 
apart — forty poles to the mile. The barman, lance 
truck, and lancemen were bunched in this work more 
than usual. When the surveyor indicated the position 
of a lance, a barman at once made a hole for it with 
his crowbar, and before leaving the spot a lance was 
passed out from the truck and stuck in the hole, to be 
afterwards taken out, and the wire attached before 
being finally implanted. In this way only were we 
able to mark the location of the holes, as the palmetto 
scrub was often waist high. 

Following the lance truck, the wire wagon reeled 
out the wire, driving on the line as nearly as possible, 
but often having to unseat the reel and run the line 
between the trees with the hand-frame. The axemen 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIX. 95 

who accompanied the surveyor chopped down any trees 
or branches which it was seen would interfere with the 
line, and after the wire was stretched another axeman 
did any further work necessary, as a branch touching 
the bare wire or its rubbing against a tree would 
ground the line in wet weather, or at least cause it to 
"leak." 

Following the wire wagon came the lancemen, who 
hauled the wire up taut from the last pole set, attached 
it to the insulator, and then raised the pole, wire and 
all, and planted it firmly in the ground. The "slot'* 
insulator, in which the wire runs through a slot in the 
India rubber, is used on three lances out of four; every 
fourth lance having a "suspension hook" insulator, 
which clamps the wire and prevents its slipping back. 

Last of all, the inspector examines the line, moves 
any lances to make it straighter, guys the lances at all 
angles, sees that it touches no trees or branches, and 
generally leaves it in first-class shape. His work is 
hard and important, although less violent than that of 
the barmen and axemen. 

At numerous places long lanes had to be cut 
through the vegetation, and often trees of considerable 
size felled. All the details were moving at once, and 
the line progressed as fast as men and mules could 
walk, which, considering all the difficulties, called for 



98 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

constant and violent exertion on the part of every man. 

Toward night the first day a long bridge over the 
Arlington Kiver was reached, and the line run across 
on glass insulators carried by brackets spiked to the 
floor timbers outside the railing. The mules were 
afraid of this bridge and gave considerable trouble, 
even after being blindfolded, as the structure trembled 
and wobbled with the heavy weight of the loaded 
wagons. 

Camp that night was made on the bank of this river 
and the soldier's supper of fried potatoes, bacon, bread, 
and coffee, which the cook had ready when the men 
came in, speedily disappeared. The next morning 
tents were struck at daylight, and the cook left with a 
detail to load the tentage and prepare dinner over the 
morning's fire, before proceeding. 

We were obliged to leave Jacksonville with only 
one barrel of water, as more barrels could not be 
obtained in either the city or the camp. This barrel 
was a new whisky barrel, and was now empty. In- 
structing the cook to fill it at a spring reported by 
a negro, I ran the line through a young orange grove 
straight to a town marked on the map, and which was 
found to consist of about twenty houses, with a school- 
house and street lamps. All of the country through 
which this line ran is plotted on the map into towns, 




\ li \L I FOR THE NIGHT. 




REBUILDING THE BRIDGE. 




L-''::% 



A TELEGR.\PH TR.\IN, 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 99 

but, with the exception of two or three negro shanties, 
all the houses to be seen were located at this point. 
The roads branching in numerous directions, and be- 
ing uncertain which was the right one, I sent a soldier 
to enquire, when it was found that only one house in 
the town was inhabited. 

The work was pushed vigorously on this forenoon, 
the lance trucks and detachments forward of it get- 
ting some distance in advance of the wire wagon and 
those working in the rear of it. At noon a halt was 
made and the horses unsaddled, although the cook 
team had not yet come up. I was vexed at this, and 
became more so as the different squads came in for 
their dinner, for the work in the burning sun was very 
severe, and the men were entitled to good food, served 
on time. After a wait of nearly an hour the cook team 
came in, but with no coffee made and an empty bar- 
rel. The cook explained that he had filled the barrel, 
but the negro teamster had let the mules run away, 
and the spigot had been broken off, losing all the 
water. Two of the men seized pails and started for a 
house half a mile away, while others made a fire. In 
the course of time coffee was made and dinner eaten, 
the men getting into line for their rations with char- 
acteristic alacrity. 

Lof-C. 



100 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

Shortly after dinner the abandoned St. John^s and 
Atlantic Railroad was crossed, over which a negro runs 
a handcar once a day to hold the charter. Beyond the 
railroad was a long stretch of corduroyed road running 
through a swamp, and several attempts were made to 
run the line through, getting mired each time, and re- 
sulting in a most angular piece of line, needing much 
guying. Following the swamp came a stretch of very 
soft sand with tall scrub, which ended at a gully lead- 
ing to the broken bridge over "Gin House Creek." 

The bridge was found just as it was left the pre- 
vious week, the stringers and flooring of the furtl^er 
half having collapsed. It was built on piles driven in 
the middle of the creek, which was about seventy feet 
wide and ten feet deep. The St. John's River was only 
about five hundred yards away, and the tide set back 
into the creek to a depth of several feet, overflowing 
the gully leading to the bridge at a point near its en- 
trance. The wagons and squads came in with the line 
and an instrument was "cut in" and a dispatch sent to 
headquarters reporting the state of affairs and asking 
about the engineer detachment. A reply shortly came 
stating that I was expected to repair the bridge with 
the men and materials at hand, and proceed. 

A reconnaissance showing a fair place to camp, al- 
though without water, on the further side of the creek. 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 101 

the tents and rations were gotten across and camp 
pitched. Upon examination the piles and cap in the 
middle of the river appeared to be sound, and the half 
of the bridge remaining intact also in serviceable con- 
dition. It was therefore decided to replace the broken 
stringers with pine logs and relay the planking on 
them. 

Early the next morning, which was rainy, four 
pines about ten inches in diameter were cut and 
trimmed to a length of thirty-two feet, while the old 
planking was torn up with crowbars, and the debris 
cleared away. With a pair of mules the logs were 
hauled to the river and slid into place on skids, not 
without much hard work, and the planks relaid and 
spiked down; all in three hours' time. 

As soon as the bridge was finished, I ordered the 
teams across, the baggage wagons first, then the lance 
truck and wire wagon. The army wagons crossed, and 
the bridge seemed to be firm as a rock; indeed I had no 
thought of its safety, as the pine logs would support 
any weight that could be brought on them. But I reck- 
oned without the action of salt water on timber in the 
tropics, for when the six-mule truck, which weighed as 
then loaded about seven thousand pounds, not count- 
ing the mules, was fairly on the bridge, the piles undei* 
the center crumbled away and with a mighty crash the 



102 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS . 

entire structure collapsed, the truck and mules going 
into the river. 

Quick work with a knife freed the mules from the 
harness, although several were pretty well drowned 
and their unearthly squeals filled the air as they swam 
to a swamp, where they laid down. The truck, with all 
our glass insulators, most of the crowbars, and part of 
the mess kits, lay on its side in ten feet of water. For- 
tunately, I sat on my horse on the near side of the 
river, as did also my first sergeant. Writing a tele- 
gram, reporting the situation, and directing that the 
lances be floated free and landed on the further side 
of the stream, I donned my rubber coat and, taking 
the sergeant, started back at a gallop to reconnoiter 
the stream. A wearisome ride in the rain ensued, with 
many trails of blind roads until a ford was discovered 
at which, by a nine-mile detour, the creek could be 
crossed. 

Reaching camp at 2 o'clock p. m., a lance truck was 
improvised from one army wagon, and a wire wagon 
from the other, with which the line was pushed ahead 
as fast as possible, while the wire wagon and a second 
lance truck, which had arrived with five hundred 
lances and fifteen miles of wire, were sent around by 
the ford, under charge of the sergeant. I was short of 
men on this day, as thirteen men belonging to a com- 



IN THE WAR WITH 8PAIN. 163 

pany about to be mustered out had been sent back at 
daybreak, the understanding being that infantrymen 
would be sent to replace them; but, as the route at this 
point required insulated cable, the work was done by 
the remaining men without great hardship. The road 
here running near the St. John^s River, the timber was 
a mixture of pine, oak, and cabbage palm, with innu- 
merable vines and bushes, all festooned with the ever- 
present Spanish moss. For more than a mile the road 
was almost a tunnel, so dense was the overhanging 
verdure, and as no amount of chopping could keep a 
bare wire from leaking, six thousand feet of insulated 
copper wire was here used, no attempt being made to 
avoid bushes and branches. Only three miles of line 
were built on this afternoon, so adverse were the con- 
ditions, and upon returning to camp I found that the 
second truck had been mired at the ford, where all the 
lances and other material had been thrown off. These 
trucks, which weighed three thousand pounds empty, 
were built with narrow wheel tires, and as I was sat- 
isfied that they could never get over the rotten bridges 
ahead, or through the soft places, I sent the truck back 
to Jacksonville the next day, and thereafter used an 
army wagon. 

The infantry detail not having arrived at dark, the 
line was tapped and a ground wire run to the river, and 



lOi EXPLOITS OF TEE SIGNAL CORPS 

I sent a telegram inquiring about them, the operator 
holding the instrument on his knee, while a candle, 
shielded by hats, furnished light. An answer was re- 
ceived saying that the detail started that morning, and 
suggesting that if they had not arrived I had better 
send back a man to look for them. This I certainly had 
no intention of doing, as my men were tired out, and it 
was very dark and was raining. Shortly after a dis- 
tant "hello" was heard, to which the men replied with 
a shout, and went down to the bank of the river, call- 
ing to the strangers, who proved to be two of the in- 
fantrymen. They had stopped at the place where the 
tide set back in the gully, and not knowing, in the 
dark, how wide or deep it was, they dared not proceed. 
In vain did my men assure them it was only a foot deep, 
urging them to wade it. The new-comers evidently 
thought they were being deceived, for their replies and 
imprecations were such as to raise a roar of laughter. 
Finally one of my men crossed the river by means of 
some planks and brought in the wanderers, who ex- 
plained that they were scouts from the main body, which 
had lost itself near the Arlington River, where the line 
ran through the orange grove. I inwardly seconded 
the jeers at men who could not follow a telegraph line 
after it was built, and let the men have all the fun they 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 105 

wanted when the rest of the detail struggled into camp 
about 10 o'clock. 

The next day an early start was made and the line 
pushed past a two-house town, where an old shed shel- 
tered a small rusty locomotive and half a dozen cars, 
all evidently out of use for years. The railroad track 
was followed for a distance to avoid a big hammock 
swamp, and then the line struck into the woods, where 
I pushed the work hard, frequently changing the shifts, 
and making such progress that five miles was built by 
noon. I had already used more time than was theoret- 
ically required to build the entire line, and one is al- 
ways expected to come up to the theoretical mark, no 
matter what the diflSculties and obstacles. There was 
here much chopping to do, which was hard for the 
infantry detail, who were not used to the work. The 
mosquitoes, too, were tremendous, and great green flies 
made the horses almost crazy, while the red-bugs had 
gotten into some of the men, just under the skin, mak- 
ing great red blotches, which itched so that they could 
not sleep. 

At noon a halt was made beside a sluggish brook, 
and another wait for the cook ensued. I reprimanded 
him rather sharply when he came in, and in starting 
out in the afternoon put his team ahead, resolved that 
the men should not wait for supper. He was really 



106 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORP^ 

doing his best, and vigorously applied the whip while 
the teamster drove, with such result that he got out of 
sight and took the wrong road — a mounted man hav- 
ing to chase him two miles at a gallop. We had had 
no water for two days but that from sluggish streams, 
and as my numerous requisitions for the filters which 
were supposed to be furnished had all been turned 
down, the only thing to do was to boil it; but the men 
were careless about this, and facilities were wanting, 
as the only large receptacle in the outfit was a coffee- 
boiler, like a tin washboiler, which always contained 
more or less coffee. 

The line now ran on the dike across the savannah, 
where an alligator might now and then be seen in the 
stagnant inlets, and work was pushed in order to reach 
a camping-place for the night. I sent the army wagons 
ahead to pitch the camp and prepare supper at Pablo, 
where there was firm ground, wood, and water. Orig- 
inally, I had intended to run the line down the beach 
a distance of four miles, on the sand-dunes; but, fear 
ing that it would not stand in the September gales, 
exposed to the full force of the wind from the Atlantic, 
I sent a sergeant to reconnoiter an interior road indi- 
cated on the map, while the rest of the train pushed 
down the wide, hard beach, reaching camp just aftei 
dark. Here water was obtained from the great sul- 




A LANCE TRUCK IN THE RIVER. 




MAKING A WIRE CABLE. 




NON-COMxMISSIONED OFFICERS 



IN THE WAP WITH SPAIN. 109 

phur well, and the next morning the outfit marched 
back to the end of the line to complete it. 

Nine miles had been built the day before, and the 
infantry contingent seemed to have had enough of it. 
When they volunteered for the detail, as a relief from 
the inactivity of the camp, where drills were forbidden 
on account of the heat, they evidently were unaware 
that the Signal Corps is one of the hardest worked de- 
partments of the Army, its duties requiring violent ex- 
ertion, regardless of sun or rain. They were clearly in 
an insubordinate mood, and shortly refused to work. 
Having no men to spare as a guard, or other facilities 
for holding them in arrest, I caused one day's rations 
to be issued to them and ordered them to report to the 
camp at Jacksonville. They had come out on an army 
wagon, with shelter tents, blankets, packs, mess kits, 
etc., and I have never learned whether they found the 
twenty-five-mile walk back easier than building tele- 
graph lines or not. 

It appeared that there were two interior roads par- 
alleling the beach, the one on which the line was com- 
menced proving not to be the one reconnoitered the 
night before and reported as practicable. After a short 
time a very dense tropical thicket was entered, where 
with continual chopping the line was necessarily 
very crooked. Thinking it to be of small extent, we 



110 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

persevered for over a mile, using bare wire, as the sup- 
ply of insulated cable was exhausted. Finally emerg- 
ing from the thicket, another mile of open country was 
crossed, when the director came back and reported 
water ahead. This proved to be a salt inlet about three 
hundred yards wide, but as this road was mapped as 
the St. Augustine turnpike, I thought it must be ford- 
able and rode my horse through it, finding the depth 
to be about three feet. Two lances were set in the 
water, and with some misgivings I directed the wagons 
to cross. The mules balked and there was much delay, 
but finally the wire wagon proceeded, nearly tipping 
over in mid-stream, and the wagon with the lances get- 
ting stuck at the same place. When all were across, 
the men were so wet they could with diflSculty handle 
the wire, on account of the heavy current which was 
kept on in order that we might "cut in" an instrument 
at any time. Another thicket appeared ahead, and the 
inspector waded across and reported that the line could 
never be prevented from leaking at the first one, at 
w^hich juncture I ordered the route abandoned, and the 
material was later recovered. 

A new start was made on the other road, and near- 
ly a bee-line across country constructed through the 
scrub palmetto, which was at places as high as the 
mules' backs. The work being completed by placing 



IN TEE WAR WITE SPAIN. Ill 

an instrument in the convalescent hospital, an office 
was opened and sixty messages sent the first afternoon. 

The march back was commenced at noon on the 
sixth day out, and the creek where the truck was lost 
reached at dark. The wire wagon, which contained the 
mess kits, had delayed to recover the wire on the aban- 
doned piece of line, and was so long coming in that I 
feared that it had gone through some bridge. Supper 
was ready, but no mess kits were to be had, and all 
ate baked beans off hardtacks and drank coffee out of 
the empty bean cans. About 9 o'clock in the evening, 
the wire wagon came up the road, which was densely 
overhung and very dark, a man going ahead with a 
candle shaded by his hat, as they had already broken 
through one small bridge in the dark. 

The lamentations of the cook roused the camp the 
next morning, when it was discovered that the mules, 
tied to the wagon wheels, had eaten a sack of flour, 
which was to have been exchanged with a negro for 
chickens. 

A set of heavy tackle had been sent out and work 
was commenced on the truck. A direct haul could be 
obtained on a pine tree some distance up the road, and 
twelve pieces of No. 14 iron wire of suitable length 
were cut, fastened at one end to a small tree, and at the 
other end to the spokes of a wagon wheel; the wagon 



112 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

was then jacked up and the wheel whirled until a good 
wire cable was made. With this, and the tackle, the 
bank being shoveled away, the truck was hauled out, 
four mules pulling on the rope. 

Camp Cuba Libre was reached at 3 o'clock p. m., 
on the seventh day out. The line thus built was used 
constantly until the Seventh Army Corps moved to 
Savannah in October, and it successfully withstood the 
great West Indian hurricane of October 2, 1898. 

For skill and energy in installing it, two sergeants 
and one corporal of the Signal Corps were promoted. 



IN TEE WAR WITE SPAIN. 113 



THE TELEGRAPH CENSOR. 

At first thought a censor is pictured as an oflBicial 
of the Russian police, who inks out pages of the Cen- 
tury Magazine, prohibits all publications deemed in- 
jurious to the policy or disrespectful to the majesty of 
the Empire, prevents all communication touching polit- 
ical or social questions, and uses his power only to 
oppress the people and to stifle civilization. 

The censor in the United States, during the Spanish- 
American War, however, was a very different kind of 
official, whose purpose was not to restrict the press, 
or to muzzle the people, but to thwart treason, and to 
prevent news of military and naval operations from 
reaching Spanish territory, to the injury of the Ameri- 
can cause. 

It has been the popular impression that the censor- 
ship was directed principally at the press, but this is 
erroneous. It was directed at all classes of business, 
private, press, and commercial, and fell on the press 
only incidentally. The conditions were unusual and 
difficult to cope with. An unprecedented number of 
correspondents were accredited to the scenes of action 
(eighty-nine accompanying Shafter's expedition to San- 



114 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

tiago), who, with imperative orders from their papers, 
and unlimited money at their disposal, were determined 
to learn all there was to know, and to publish it. Some 
of them are suspected of being so unscrupulous as to 
prefer news which was intended to be kept secret, and 
if the censorship fell with much vigor on the press at 
any time, these gentlemen are to blame for it. 

The first expedition for the invasion of Cuba, known 
as the "Gussie Expedition," failed because it had been 
heralded in the press, and it therefore became neces- 
sary to exercise a supervision over the reports of cor- 
respondents; but for the most part the leading press 
associations and journals manifested a most patriotic 
spirit, expressing a willingness and desire to refrain 
from publishing information which would be detri- 
mental to military operations or would embarass the 
administration. 

The lines constructively seized by the Signal Corps, 
at the order of the President, embraced the land lines 
of Florida, the seven submarine cables to foreign coun- 
tries having their termini in New York city, the French 
cable on the south coast of Cuba, the English cables in 
Porto Rico and Santiago, and the Cuba submarine 
cables. 

Most of these cables were not actually operated by 
the Signal Corps, "constructively seized" meaning that 



IN THE WAR WITH 8PAIN. 115 

the chief signal officer assumed responsibilitj for them, 
while the regular operators and superintendents con- 
tinued to operate them "on honor'' and under the gen- 
eral supervision of a signal officer. All the companies 
acceded cheerfully to the strict supervision necessa- 
rily exercised over their lines, and many suffered heav- 
ily financially, especially the Western Union Telegraph 
Company, whose West India traffic over the Havana 
cables was almost totally destroyed. The position of 
the companies was at times delicate and complicated, 
as, for instance, when the French Telegraphic Cables 
Company strove to fulfill its obligations as a neutral 
corporation with a Spanish military censor at its office 
in Santiago and an American military censor at Playa 
del Este. 

All telegrams in Spanish to and from Spain, Cuba, 
Hayti, Porto Rico, Jamaica, and St. Thomas were pro 
hibited, as well as all messages in cipher to any foreign 
country, except that the right to communicate in cipher 
was allowed the legal diplomatic and consular repre- 
sentatives of neutral foreign governments. 

Personal and commercial messages in plain text 
were admitted, when deemed advisable, and when not 
containing military information, as it was the purpose 
of the chief signal officer to exercise the necessary mili- 
tary censorship with the least possible inconvenience 



116 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

to legitimate commercial business. Thus it happened 
that throughout the war messages pertaining to domes- 
tic or commercial affairs were passed freely over the 
lines to Havana, and even to Santiago. 

Much information of inestimable value was gleaned 
from a perusal of messages which were attempted to 
be passed by Spanish agents, blockade-runners, news- 
paper correspondents, and unfriendly or neutral per- 
sons. The movements of Spanish ships, the plans of 
blockade-runners, and the presence and doings of Span- 
ish agents were thus discovered and watched. By ac- 
cepting messages of treasonable character and quietly 
dropping them in the waste-basket, the sources of the 
information were not alarmed and repeatedly furnished 
to the United States valuable intelligence. 

The principal points at which censorship was exer- 
cised were New York city, Key West, and Tampa. At 
Key West, Colonel James Allen, while military censor, 
learned of the arrival and of the subsequent movements 
of Admiral Cervera at Santiago, and also of the move 
ments of the American Navy on the south coast of 
Cuba. 

At Tampa, Captain Brady held an important post 
as censor, principally over press dispatches, while the 
troops were mobilizing at that point. It was a critical 
time, so far as the publishing of information relating 



\ 




BRIG. GEN. A. W. GREELY, 
Chief Signal OHicer of the Annv, 



IN THE WAB WITH SPAIN, 119 

to the movement of troops was concerned, and the 
countless "war correspondents" in the full exuberance 
of the beginning of a campaign kept Captain Brady at 
work night and day scanning their miles of copy. At 
New York, Lieutenant-Colonel Maxfield, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Squiers, and Lieutenant Grant Squires succes- 
sively acted as censor. 

The largest amount of business went over the 
United States and Hayti Cable Company's fifteen hun- 
dred-mile cable from New York to Cape Haytien, from 
which cables ran west to Cuba, east to Porto Rico, and 
south to Martinique. All Government business had an 
absolute preference over all other messages awaiting 
transmission in either direction, the business of the 
Navy Department having the preference over other 
bureaus of the Government until our troops landed in 
Cuba, when War Department business was given first 
place, then the Navy Department and the Department 
of State. 

The usual time occupied in the transmission of mes- 
sages between the War Department and headquarters 
in the field before Santiago was twenty minutes, but on 
unusual occasions, or at the request of the Executive, 
War or Navy Departments, or commanding officers of 
armies or fleets, most rapid service was given. As an 
instance of the electrical connection of Washington 



120 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

with Santiago, the censor at New York city received, 
after the surrender of Santiago, a request from the ad- 
miral commanding, that he be furnished with true 
Washington time, for the purpose of correcting the 
chronometers of the fleet. The officer in charge of the 
Naval Observatory at Washington was informed and 
the line between New York and Washington, running 
to the Hayti cable office, cleared of business. The ca- 
ble between New York and Cape Haytien and thence 
to Santiago was also cleared, and at the stroke of noon 
the signal flashed into the Hayti cable office, thence to 
Cape Haytien and to Santiago, the officer from the ad- 
miral's flagship receiving the signal within two sec- 
onds of its stroke in Washington. 

After the capture and transfer to this country of 
numbers of Spanish officers and men, messages were 
allowed to pass freely between them and their friends 
and relatives in Spain, although the strictest censor- 
ship was maintained over all matters concerning the 
enemy still in arms. This relaxation tended to greatly 
diminish the bitter feeling between Spain and the 
United States, and together with the remarkable so- 
journ of the Spanish captives, in which they were 
treated almost as guests rather than prisoners, showed 
to our Old World adversaries something of the total 
absence of enmity on the part of the United States in 
the war for Cuba Libre and humanity. 



IN TEE WAR WITH 8PAIN, 121 



APPENDIX. 

Order of Brigadier General A. W. Greely, chief sig- 
nal officer, United States Army, reviewing the services 
of the Signal Corps in the war with Spain: 

"Orders War Department, Signal Office, 

"No. 13. Washington, September 13, 1898. 

"The disintegration of the United States Volunteer 
Signal Corps begins with the relief this day from active 
duty of the Fourteenth Company, under orders, with 
a view to its furlough and muster out. Debarred, by 
stress of duties at his designated post, from participat- 
ing in field service with the companies of the Signal 
Corps, the chief signal officer of the Army cannot per- 
mit his men to return to civil life without some word of 
acknowledgment of their loyal, efficient, and valuable 
services to the nation. 

"Despite this being an age of electricity, nearly a 
month passed after the legislation creating a great 
volunteer army before authority of law was granted for 
the organization of a Volunteer Signal Corps; never- 
theless its members can truly claim that this corps has 
failed in no duty and been found wanting in no emer- 
gency, and there were many. 



122 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

"The history of the Volunteer and Eegular Corps ia 
inseparably connected; for the sixty Regulars — men 
and officers — were but a frame-work to the one hundred 
and sixteen officers and one thousand men in the Vol- 
unteers. Apart from the chief signal officer, every Reg- 
ular officer but one served as a Volunteer, and all, with- 
out exception, have been merged and unified into one 
command. 

"With the war practically ended, the brief recital of 
your services is not vainglorious, but may serve as a 
standard, which we trust the American soldier of the 
twentieth century will strive to excel in days of future 
peril to the Republic. 

"In the Santiago campaign you were the first of the 
Army to arrive, as you were the last to leave. Destroy- 
ing, within range of the Spanish guns, the submarine 
cables that gave the enemy daily information of ines- 
timable value, when the occupation of Santiago was or- 
dered, you repaired cables with such celerity that you 
opened communication between the United States Ma- 
rine Camp at Caimanera (Guantanamo) and New York 
city on June 21st, the day prior to the landing of the 
Fifth Army Corps off Santiago. Detained even after 
the homeward voyage of your commanding general, you 
formed the last organized command to leave the con- 
quered city, and some eve^ now are not free from de- 



IN THE WAR WITH SPAHr. 128 

tention camp. Battles may be fought and epidemics 
spread, but speedy communication must nevertheless 
be maintained, and owing to your efforts the army in 
Cuba has not been isolated telegraphically a single day. 

"In the Cuban campaign you arranged, maintained, 
and operated a system of cable and land lines — partly 
commercial, partly war cables, partly flying telegraph 
lines, and partly telephone lines — that enabled mes- 
sages to pass in twenty minutes from the Executive 
Mansion in Washington to the headquarters of the 
army before Santiago, and which offered direct and 
immediate communication between the Secretary of 
War in his office and the Signal Corps men in the ad- 
vanced rifle-pits, on the right, the left, and in the cen- 
ter of our intrenched army, within four hundred yards 
of the enemy. When the city fell, your lines followed 
immediately army headquarters as it moved therein. 

"No one will ever know the difficulties — physical and 
moral, climatic and service — under which you labored 
in Cuba. Heat and thirst, hunger and fatigue — these 
present sufferings, with pending disease and death — 
you endured and faced uncomplainingly with the rest 
of the army; but these conditions never prevented the 
prompt, cheerful, and efficient discharge of the import- 
ant duties devolving unremittingly day and night on 
the Signal Corps. 



124 EXPLOITS OF THE SimAL CORPS 

"Although not counted a part of the fighting force 
of the army, you unhesitatingly advanced, in obedience 
to orders and under the direction of an officer of an- 
other corps, the Signal Corps balloon to the skirmish 
line, where you sent up and occupied it under sharp fire 
of shrapnel and heavy fire of musketry, until, rent and 
perforated, it fell useless to the ground. Later, your 
balloon destroyed, you carried to the front, under heavy 
fire, rapid-firing guns for the use of the First United 
States Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders). 

"In Porto Rico you were ever with the advance, par- 
ticipating as scouts and skirmishers in the capture and 
occupation of towns. From the beginning to the end 
of the campaign you kept each important command in 
telegraphic or telephonic communication both with the 
corps commanders and also with the base of operations. 
Your action and persistency speedily replaced the spe- 
cial cable instruments destroyed by the enemy, thus 
making possible immediate telegraphic communication 
with the United States. Such were your energy and 
dispatch that nearly two hundred miles of wire were 
being operated by you in Porto Rico when the peace 
protocol initiated an armistice. 

"In the Philippines you were always to the front, and 
throughout the operations constructed and maintained 
telegraphic lines in the advance trenches at Manila, 



IN THE WAR WITH 8PATN. 125 

remaining with the rest of the army, under fire daily, 
under conditions so dangerous that five officers were 
breveted and several men recommended for medals of 
honor. The city taken, your application and ingenuity 
repaired the severed Manila — Hong Kong cable days 
in advance of the arrival of the English cable ship, and 
this very day marks the laying of a Signal Corps cable 
between Cavite and Manila. 

"Less exciting, but scarcely second in importance, 
were your duties at the great camps of the country 
— Alger (Falls Church, Va.), Cuba Libre (Jacksonville, 
Fla.), Meade (Middletown, Pa.), Thomas (Chickamauga 
Park, Ga.), Wikoff (Montauk Point, Long, Island), and 
others — where telephonic and telegraphic systems, in- 
dispensable for proper administrative purposes, were 
promptly established without waiting for formal 
application. 

"The connections by cable of the principal forts in 
our great harbors and the initiation and installment of 
an entirely new electrical fire-control system were also 
your labors. Meanwhile, throughout the war, the mili- 
tary telegraph lines around the great Indian reserva- 
tions and along the Mexican frontier were as regularly 
maintained and faithfully operated as in peace. 

"Wise restrictive legislation by Congress in obliging 
two-thirds of the Signal Corps to be electrical experts, 
recognized, theoretically, the value to the Signal Corps 



126 EXPLOITS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS 

of competent officers and intelligent men. It has re- 
mained for you to practically demonstrate this in the 
unique character of service rendered by you to the Gov- 
ernment. While your service everywhere has been of 
the highest character, you have especially illustrated 
that development of character necessary to expert work 
by your devotion as officers and your obedience as men 
under the trying and monotonous conditions of camp 
and garrison life, where the soldier and officer are fash- 
ioned day by day for the supreme moment of battle. 
The lessons there learned have served you well. 

"The Signal Corps has filled neither the guard-house 
nor the hospital. Serving in the field in Cuba, in the 
Philippines, in Porto Kico, and in home garrisons at 
Tampa, Chickamauga, Camp Alger, Jacksonville, and 
Montauk, yet your total aggregate of over thirteen hun- 
dred has lost by disease in camp and field, to date, only 
five — officers and men included. 

"As our roads part and the greater number of the 
Signal Corps go back to the paths of civil life, the chief 
signal officer of the Army gives you all god-speed, hop- 
ing that the hardships of war, while making you advo- 
cates of all peace that is not shameful and unpatriotic, 
will ever make you mindful of the value and welfare of 
the regular Signal Corps, of which you have been so 
great a part in the war, to the glory of the American 
Army." 



/ .n-^;/ ^ / 



